Sanchez was stellar in 2010 playoffs with road wins over against Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. (Getty Images)
The New York Jets insist they have no quarterback controversy, and I believe them. Mark Sanchez is their guy, they tell us, and they're going to do everything they can to make him the quarterback they believe he can be.
OK, terrific.
But then they turn around this week and dissect Sanchez's "poor decision-making," saying it contributed to his 26 turnovers last season, before applauding backup Tim Tebow for his throwing motion. Now, I might have this all wrong, but that sure sounds like a competition to me, which begs the question: Is this any way to support your starting quarterback?
In this case, I suggest it might be.
For three years Sanchez has been the Jets' unquestioned starter. From the moment he stepped into training camp as a rookie the plan was to make him -- not veteran Kellen Clemens -- the starter and to see where he could take them. And where he took them was to two AFC championship games in his first two pro seasons.
Sanchez wasn't just good in the playoffs. He was better than ever, going 4-2 -- all on the road -- with nine touchdowns, three interceptions and a completion percentage of 60.5.
Contrast that to his regular-season performance, where he was 19-12, with nearly as many interceptions (29) as touchdowns (33) and a completion rate of 54.4 percent, and it's clear he tapped into something in the playoffs that was missing before.
"If you look at my regular-season numbers, as opposed to my postseason numbers," he told me during last summer's training camp, "it looks like two different people. I need to play with that sense of urgency during the regular season ... I think that lose-and-go-home mentality really changes how you play, and I need to have that mentality all the time. That's what becoming a seasoned veteran is about."
Let me suggest that that's what this week is all about, too.
There was no urgency to Sanchez's game when there was no threat behind him. First, it was Clemens. Later, it was Mark Brunell. Neither was going to start, and everyone knew it -- and maybe, just maybe, that retarded Sanchez's progress and made him too comfortable when he should have been playing "with that sense of urgency," as he put it.
I mean, look back to what he did in the 2010 playoffs. He beat Peyton Manning in Indianapolis. He beat Tom Brady in New England. And he nearly pulled off a second-half comeback to catch Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers in Pittsburgh. He was, as he acknowledged, a different quarterback, and the Jets hoped that what they witnessed then was what they'd get the following season.
But it wasn't, and so now they move on to Plan B. They create the urgency for Sanchez.
They bring in Tebow. They say he could get as many as 20 snaps a game. They insist he's strictly a backup, but then talk about what they don't like about Sanchez's game and what they do like about Tebow's. In essence, they create a competition that may or may not be there to create doubt in somebody's mind -- and Mark Sanchez is the first guy I can think of.
I know, it sounds like a reach, but it's worked before. Think back to 2004 when San Diego had all but given up on quarterback Drew Brees after three seasons. The Chargers acquired Philip Rivers in the draft, with the idea that he would supplant Brees sometime that season.
Only it never happened. Brees responded to the challenge with the best year of his career, leading the Chargers to their first division title in a decade and forcing the club to keep Rivers nailed to the bench until 2006 -- or after Brees left.
The difference then, of course, was that Brees was entering the last season of his contract, forcing the Chargers to make a decision on him. Sanchez just got a three-year extension that should underscore the club's faith in him. Only now he must prove he's worth it, and that's where Tebow comes in.
Sanchez knows what the guy can do because he lost to him last season. He knows he took Denver to last year's playoffs, too, where he beat the defending conference champion. He also knows what happens if he screws up, and I'm not just talking about fans calling for his benching; I'm talking about pinching a coaching staff that needs him to play more smartly and efficiently if the Jets are to return to the playoffs.
So there's a sense of ... yeah, urgency ... that might've been missing, and maybe that's what the Jets want to manufacture. If the fear of losing a playoff game motivated Sanchez before, maybe the fear of losing his job motivates him now.
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